Oran, we found, was not a bad place at all.  But most of the Americans there would have traded the whole layout for the worst town in the United States, and thrown in a hundred dollars to boot.  That’s the way Americans are, including me.  Most of us had never heard of Oran till the war started, yet it is a bigger city than El Paso.  It has palm-lined streets, broad sidewalks, outdoor cafés, a beautiful harbor, restaurants with soft colored lighting, and apartments with elevators.

On the other hand, it also has Arabs dressed in ragged sheets, garbage in the gutters, dogs that are shockingly gaunt, and more horse carts than automobiles.

Most of the Americans talked about how dirty Oran was.  Which just goes to show they hadn’t been around.  Oran was cleaner than some of the poorer Latin cities in our own hemisphere.  And at that season it didn’t even smell very bad.

World travelers had told me that Oran had an Oriental atmosphere, but I couldn’t detect it.  It seemed much more like a Latin city than an Oriental one.  And it could be compared in many ways with El Paso, discounting the harbor.  The climate is roughly the same.  Both cities are in semiarid country.  Both are dusty in the spring and very hot in summer.  Both are surrounded by fertile, irrigated land that produces fruit and vegetables and grain.

The population of Oran is actually mostly French, Spanish, and Jewish.  The Arabs are a minority.  They run all the way from hidueous beggars up to solemn men in long white robes and bright turbans, sitting in the most expensive cafés and sipping tall drinks.  But there are many more Europeans than Arabs.